


Always You

by infernalandmortal



Series: Memori Week 2018 [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 03:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14803824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infernalandmortal/pseuds/infernalandmortal
Summary: “What do you want most in the world?” he asks her once, the night after they signed the papers at the courthouse. He’s still not tired of looking at the ring around his finger, the matching chain around Emori’s - his wife’s - neck.She rolls her eyes upwards, thinking. “A house,” she decides. “Not a big house, but a house. And a kid. A real life.” She leans up to press a kiss to his cheek. “And you,” she murmurs. “Always you.”





	Always You

**Author's Note:**

> This is also the pseudo-backstory for [Road Music](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14698803), but you don't have to read that to get this.
> 
> All errors are my own.
> 
> For Memori Week, Day Three: Breakup

It all starts with a bar fight.

For once, Murphy has nothing to do with it. He’s just sitting there when a girl at the end of the bar starts swinging.

The guy she decks goes down in seconds, but another one isn’t far behind. The girl gets a few more punches in before Bellamy bursts out of the back and manhandles them apart.

“Keep it in the Underground,” he snarls, shoving one guy into the wall and sending the other one sprawling into a stack of chairs. “Don’t bring that shit up here.”

The girl looks vaguely offended. “I could’ve handled it,” she gripes to Bellamy, who chucks her shoulder on his way back behind the bar. 

“You know better, Em,” he says.

She hops up on a stool and kicks her feet in the air. “Can I have a shot?”

“You’ve already had two,” Bellamy says in that annoying older-brother voice that nauseates Murphy on a good day, even when it’s not directed at him.

“You know I’m not a lightweight,” she retorts, then lets out a “yay!” when he slides her another one with a belabored sigh.

Murphy studies her as she drinks. Her firm chin and stony eyes say she knows what it is to go through hell. Her soft cheeks and genuine grin say she’s strong enough to do it alone.

She holds out her shot glass. Bellamy snorts. “That’s enough.”

When Bellamy turns his back, Murphy slides her his unconsumed drink, then puts his finger to his lips in what he hopes is a comical gesture. She drinks it down, then scoots a few stools over nudging him with her shoulder when she sits down beside him.

“I’m Emori,” she says lowly, still watching both Bellamy and the two other guys, who made themselves comfortable at a table in the corner obscured by shadows.

“I’m-”

“John Murphy,” she interrupts. He looks down to see her flipping his wallet open. She smiles up at him. “Hi, John.”

Her voice goes soft when she says his name. This affects him much more than it should, but he acts like it doesn’t.

“What’s the story there?” he asks, nodding back to the table in the shadows. 

Emori shrugs. “We just have an old score, that’s all.”

“What happens in Fight Club stays in Fight Club,” Bellamy says over his shoulder. 

Murphy looks at her. “The Underground, you mean? Thought that was a myth.”

Emori snorts. “It’s just a dusty basement where criminals and street kids beat the shit out of each other for money. Nothing else to it.”

“That’s a lot,” Murphy points out. Then, “are you a fighter?”

“‘Scrapper’ is more accurate,” Bellamy says. Emori flips him off with one hand. The other, Murphy notices, is wrapped in some kind of dirty cloth.

He almost reaches for it, but then he remembers that she can fight and probably enjoys it, so he elects to not earn himself a punch in the face for his impetuousness.

“So, John,” she starts, sliding the empty shot glass back and forth. “Why are you at a bar, doing shots, in the middle of the day?”

“Nothing better to do,” he says at the same time Bellamy adds, “Because he’s a menace to society.”

“I see.” Her eyes sparkle. “Want to go somewhere?”

“Where?”

“Anywhere.” She slides off the stool. “Depends on how drunk you are.”

* * *

‘Anywhere’ turns out to be the top of the highway overpass.

“Good thing you’re not a clumsy drunk,” Emori says over her shoulder, shouting to be heard above the roar of cars below them.

“I’m not drunk!” Murphy shouts back. 

She sits down and dangles her feet over the edge. Murphy sits as much in the middle as possible and crosses his legs. “So,” she asks once the highway falls silent. “What’s your story?”

“What, we’re not going to start with small talk?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “I hate it. Small talk, I mean.” She tilts her head. “You get sarcastic when you’re nervous.”

She’s right. He hates it, but he thinks he might love her.

“Shitty mom, dead dad, love of inebriation,” he rattles off. “I work at the bar and hang out when I’m off. It’s not bad, I guess.”

Emori studies him for a long moment. “I have a brother - Otan - but my mom threw me out when I was born for this.” She holds up the hand wrapped in cloth. “I don’t know my dad. Don’t really care to.”

“Why did you join Fight Club?” he asks.

Emori laughs. Her smile is beautiful. Murphy could stare at it for hours. “It’s not actually called Fight Club, you know,” she says still laughing. “But it’s a fast and only semi-illegal way to make money. And we need it. My brother has a lot of debts and the alternative isn’t kind.”

Murphy doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing. She looks out over the horizon and he looks at her. He can already tell that he has the better view.

* * *

Somewhere between her fights and his messy habits, they fall in love.

He can’t pinpoint the moment, which is strange. Everything that has started or ended his life has come in the form of a single thing: a death, a betrayal, a bottle. But this...this snuck up on him like a thief in the night. Which, coincidentally, is what she is.

He watches her in the Underground most nights, then takes her upstairs to his apartment - the only times he’s ever happy to be living right above the bar - and cleans her up. Most times, she stays the night. Sometimes they kiss. Sometimes they have sex, but that’s only when her ribs aren’t bruised. He wants to take care of her, wants to make sure she’ll be alright, especially since he never sees anyone else doing it.

“Why doesn’t your brother come?” he asks her one night while he’s wrapping her sprained right wrist. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”

Her eyes darken. He catalogs her face, the cuts and bruises, the fresh scars, and suddenly it dawns on him that she’s been fighting more viciously now than in the past, more wild and angry, as if she has less to lose than before.

He recognizes what’s in her eyes. He used to see it all the time in the mirror, back before he broke all the ones in his apartment.

“He’s dead,” Murphy says, and a single tear rolls down her face. “How?”

She shakes her head and presses her left hand against her mouth, letting out a soft sob. Murphy sits down next to her on his shitty couch and pulls her close, letting her curl up against him while trying not to hurt her ribs.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers in her ear, stroking her hair away from the bloody cut on her cheekbone, right above the scar below her eye, the one that bastard Baylis gave to her right after he signed her up for her first fight. “I’m so sorry.”

She falls asleep like that. It’s the safest Murphy has ever felt.

* * *

“What do you want most in the world?” he asks her once, the night after they signed the papers at the courthouse. He’s still not tired of looking at the ring around his finger, the matching chain around Emori’ - his wife’s - neck.

She rolls her eyes upwards, thinking. “A house,” she decides. “Not a big house, but a house. And a kid. A real life.”

Murphy hums. It’s possible now, he thinks. He got a real job pushing paper at a big corporate building. He earns a decent paycheck, and so does she from her work at a warehouse downtown. It’s possible. He could give her what she wants.

She leans up to press a kiss to his cheek. “And you,” she murmurs. “Always you.”

* * *

“You shouldn't stay here.”

Murphy knows this was coming, but the pain her voice holds is enough to nearly break him all the same.

He stands up. He knows he should fight for this - for  _ her _ \- but he doesn’t. He’s fought enough over the past year, out of terror and fear. Mostly fear.

“Okay.” His words feel like her scars from the Underground looked - messy and raw. This is a fight he can’t win.

Her eyes shutter. She’s closed off from him now, gone. Gone for real. He can’t get her back now. The knowledge drives a stake through his heart.

“So that’s it?” She asks his back as he goes to their room to get his stuff. “Five years of this and you won’t even argue?”

“Seems like you’ve made up your mind,” he says. Thankfully, his voice sounds much less pained than he feels.

“Fuck you, John,” she spits.

He flinches. When he turns to face her, she softens. “I don’t want you to leave,” she whispers. “But we’re a team. If you can’t act like it, then there’s something wrong here.”

He can’t look at her. He doesn’t, not until he’s at the door, all the things he owns in one bag.

She doesn’t say goodbye. He waits until he gets to the car to cry.

* * *

Emori always knows where he is.

It's not just because he's her husband, even though that's what she tells herself. It's because she's waiting for him to come home. 

She thought he would when she told him he could come back to their apartment about six months after he first left. She thought - hoped - that he'd see her and remember how they used to be and want that again, want it more than he wanted to self destruct.

He didn't. She moved out less than 24 hours after he came back, but she always made sure to drive past the old building every so often, even after she moved miles and miles and hours and hours away. 

Just in case.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't use a Siken poem for this one. What is the world coming to?
> 
> If you want to read more sad breakup stuff, read [Road Music](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14698803). Trust me.


End file.
